Risk Management and Management Control System, a close relationship in process: Isomorphism in the Italian Municipalities

The role of the risk management was increased in all main literature about management control system in the last years, not only in private but also in the public sector (Rana et al., 2019; Hinna et al., 2018; Chapman, 2001; Broadbent and Guthrie, 1992, p. 137). There are more contributions that explain how risk management practices are a fundamental instrument in the public sector (Rana et al., 2019; Riso and Castellini, 2019; Keban, 2017) and also the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (afterwards, INTOSAI) guidelines “9130†offer an over view to implement a risk management strategy in the organizations’ management control systems (INTOSAI 9130, 2007). However, in the Italian context is evident that risk management is entered the public sector but the way in which risk management is introduced within organizations is only in the recent literature researched and not empirically explored (Hinna et al., 2018; Woods, 2009; Leung and Isaacs, 2008). This work is a dowel of a wide research project on Risk Management in public sector and tries to contribute bridge this gap analysing the way in which risk management is introduced in the public organizations. Indeed, the analysis about the risk management introduction in the public organizations is conducted through the collection of qualitative data published by the public organizations on its institutional websites. In deep, the analysis pushes to hypothesize that the introduction of the risk management in the municipalities be a phenomenon of mimetic isomorphism, typically put in place when there is uncertainty in the behaviour to be adopted (DiMaggio and Powell, 2000). Furthermore, the developing of the risk management practices in the management control system of the municipalities involves a growth of the managerial skills.